


Hearts Breaking Even

by GenitalGrievous



Series: These Days [4]
Category: Speed Racer (2008)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-12
Updated: 2010-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-16 22:13:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1363597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenitalGrievous/pseuds/GenitalGrievous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspector Detector moves on. Racer X tries to put the pieces back together. Taejo comes in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearts Breaking Even

Detector rolled against the rough sheets in the hotel bed, struggling against the discomfort of an unfamiliar room. He turned to the side and looked at the cheap alarm clock on the bedside table. 10:44. A bit too early to be aggravated about not getting sleep, he thought to himself. The night felt colder than usual tonight, it seemed like the crisp air had seeped in through the rickety windows and doors, permeating around the room and thoroughly inundating the bed sheets with the unfavourable temperature. He looked at the other side of the Queen Size bed, wondering if his usual bed-mate was having the kind of sleep trouble he was, or if he had even made it home yet.   
It had seemed easy, when he was doing it, just letting X get off free. Pretending that he understood what X was going through, that he understood the choice, that all he worried about was whether or not Speed Racer would take care of his older brother. Laying in this rented bed tonight, Detector found himself wondering if X had even gotten around to letting Speed know that his dearly departed brother was neither departed nor so dear after all. He had a sinking feeling that X was putting it off, he knew how much X had missed the time he spent with Speed, and he had a sickening feeling that X was willing to do whatever it took to be next to Speed again, even if it meant taking to Speed’s bed.   
Detector sighed and rolled against his pillow. Somewhere a voice resounded in his head-- “I will be the one to come out on top.” He was tired of playing the adult, tired of being a responsible lover, and deep down he could feel a latent hurt waiting to escape.

X lifted his face up from the steering wheel of the Falling Star. He looked at the dashboard clock and mentally cursed himself for having fallen asleep in such a compromising place. He wiped his face with one hand, and began fishing around the floor of his car for the pack of cigarettes that he had dropped earlier. That was when he looked to his right and noticed a red sock peeking over a yellow tennis shoe. His heart sank.  
“Speed?” He straightened up and made eye contact with his brother.  
Speed smiled coyly at X, crossing his legs at the knee, “Good morning sleepyhead, I was wondering when you’d wake up.”  
“How did you get here?” X asked in a raspy voice, drawing his lighter out of the pack along with two cigarettes.   
Speed waved away the offer of a cigarette, and X replaced it in the pack, “How else? I came to the raceway for a late night drive and saw a familiar car in the parking lot, I came up, and you looked so tired and angelic that I couldn’t dare help but--you know.”  
“Watch me sleep?” X lit his cigarette, “I can’t tell if I’m flattered or put off.”  
“What’s making you act all grouchy, huh? Missing your beauty sleep?”  
“He knew, Speed. He knew all along and he was just letting me make a fool of myself trying to hide it from him.” X exhaled a long stream of smoke and shook his head, “I just feel like the biggest idiot.”  
“How so, didn’t he just make it easier for you?”  
“Speed, something like that can never be easier. He just--it just makes it hurt that much more, almost ten years of my life I’ve been with him, and what am I worth now?” X hit his forehead on the steering wheel.   
“Oh, I don’t know, it seems like you’re worth a lot to me.”  
X looked Speed in the eyes and tried to read his meaning. He sighed and took another drag off of his cigarette. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

The light shone a mild golden as it hit the amber whiskey in Detector’s glass. He swirled the liquid leisurely, seeing how each different colour changed the reflections of the hotel bar. He took a sip, savoured it against his tongue, swallowed it, and luxuriated in the heat that spread through his midsection. It was his third glass. His first made the nearby pianist a grinding irritation, his second helped him forget the sound, and his third was gradually turning it into a beautiful and sombre love song.  
One of the bars other patrons quietly eased themselves into the booth with Detector. He didn’t feel like dealing with a conversation, or the quiet explanation of why, no, a woman could not escort him upstairs to his room. Hotel Bar patrons were always so lonely and depressing, especially the sort who are still in the lounge at midnight, several hours after the business men and leisure travellers have gone to bed. Detector sighed audibly and looked up, raising his eyebrows as he realized that the person sitting across the table from him was not only a man--it was Jack Taylor.  
“Inspector--” Taylor said with false enthusiasm, “What brings you here of all places? --Trouble on the home front?”  
“Mr. Taylor,” Detector cleared his throat, “I hardly have the patience required to deal with your personality tonight.” Detector grumbled, draining the last of his whiskey and signalling the bar back for another.  
“I’m going to accept that answer--for now--but you will have to satiate my curiosity eventually.” Taylor raised one eyebrow as he excused himself from the table.  
Detector frowned as he watched Taylor in his two piece suit disappear out the doorway of the lounge towards the elevators. Jack Taylor had entered a plea bargain during the beginning of the controversial trial that had followed the Grand Prix. In return for his testimony about Royalton, and the race fixers (and with a solemn oath that he had never agreed to having spear hooks applied to the GRX) he had been able to avoid any jail time. Detector assumed that Taylor was staying in the hotel until the outcome of the trial was announced, and inwardly scolded himself for not having been more deliberate in his hotel selection.  
Detector massaged the bridge of his nose between gulps of whisky.

“Speed, go easy.” X’s voice gruff voice stood out in harsh contrast with the quiet whistle of the wind through the trees that dotted the empty parking lot.  
“I can’t conceive of doing anything else,” Speed punctuated the end of his sentence with a sharp pinch to X’s right buttock.  
X had his arms wrapped around the headrest of the passenger seat with his knees on the seat, leaving his butt poking out enticingly. Speed had already pulled his black leather pants down to his knees, and the cold night air lightly stung his tanned skin, leaving his flesh slowly whitening. X wasn’t particularly in the mood, but Speed was being forceful, and he hoped that maybe the friction of their bodies could serve to ease the memory of that previous night from his system.  
The stars above them twinkled through the cloudless sky and the waxing moon shone a pale light that seemed to make the skin on X’s arms, where he had his sight trained, glow with a soft intensity. Speed was scissoring two spit-coated fingers in X’s anus, widening the hole gently due to the lack of lubrication. The fingers were quickly pulled from the warm space, earning a soft gasp from X’s lips, but were promptly replaced with the heated tip of Speed’s cock, pushing gently against the loosened entrance. 

The sheets in Detector’s hotel bed upstairs were just as cold and uninviting as when he had left them for the lounge. A part of him privately wished that he had invited Taylor upstairs with him, if only as a night-time bed warmer. Maybe the warmth of Taylor could have even helped him to forget the seemingly unnecessary events earlier in the night. Detector stared at the alarm clock sombrely. 3:14. Now it is the time to complain about a lack of sleep.  
At some point Detector was going to have to go back to the flat to get his things, even if it was only the bare necessities, there was enough that could not be easily or quickly replaced in the downtown shops. At some point later, the decade-worth of possessions that he and Rex had gathered would have to be divvied between the two. An owner of the old apartment would need to be elected, a new home found for the other. Thinking about the melancholy future, sleep finally took hold over Detector.

Speed had X’s face forcefully pushed into the vinyl headrest with one hand, and the other held him down between the shoulder blades as his hips violently worked his cock in and out of X at a high speed, throwing sweat down in great drops onto his upper back. X’s mind was blank, he couldn’t help but notice that the act being shared between the two was something far apart from making love. His mind was growing blank, his physical arousal was there, but it was as though his body, his penis, was something completely separated from his brain.   
The rough damp fabric of the passenger seat grated against his cock as his hips bounced back at forth with the force of Speed’s thrusts, gradually working his body towards the brink of arousal. With one push from Speed, marginally more forceful than the last, X’s cock slammed into the seat, causing him to come, ejaculate spraying out onto the seat. As his sphincter clenched Speed cam inside of him, spreading warmth through his lower body.   
Speed slid off of X’s back and quickly righted his clothes, exiting the car.   
“Get yourself decent.” He said as he slid into the Mach 5 in the adjacent spot. With a loud vroom the car that had once belonged to X drove away.

Detector awakened with the morning sun tickling his face from the open curtain. He made a curious glance at the alarm clock. 7:58. About the right time to be getting up. He should at least try to make an appearance at the Royalton trial, today was the first day of the third week, testimony was flowing in from all corners at this point, though very little had been actually required from Detector himself.   
The air in the hotel room had a mild chill to it as it caressed Detector’s naked body, fresh from the seductive warmth of the bundled sheets and comforters. Rubbing his hands against his chest and torso to try to warm up, Detector made his way to the small bathroom. The water was hot, and just being under the flow improved Detector’s mood and wakefulness, despite the poor quality of the water pressure.   
Detector lathered his hands with the small bar of cheap soap and began roughly cleaning his chest, hips, thighs, and face. As the hot water washed the suds away from Detector’s face and neck he began working soap into his flaccid member, intending only to clean it, but as he scrubbed at his pubic hairs and his scrotum, he could feel himself beginning to harden. It’s probably due at least in part to stress, Detector thought to himself, and in the same thought decided that the best action would be to relieve the stress.  
Cheap though the soap was, it made an excellent lubricant for his purpose. Detector braced himself on the shower wall with his left hand, and began to work up and down his shaft with his right hand. He thought it would probably be appropriately apologetic to fantasize about shower time escapades with Rex, but as he began to steer his thinking in that direction he suddenly came upon a mental block. An immediate and vivid image of Jack Taylor as he had looked in the shower rooms at the Grand Prix fixated itself in his mind and, as his hands were already quite busied with the task on hand, he could do nothing but make use of the image that was at ready.   
Detector moved his hand up and down his shaft slowly, rubbing his thumb over the sensitive tip and trying to decide if he wanted to fantasize about Taylor sucking him off, or just using his hands. He didn’t have much time to decide, however, as the image itself seemed to do the trick. He sped up his ministrations, spiralling his hand and pushing harder against the shower wall as he felt his knees beginning to go weak. As his seed sprayed the shower wall, Detector felt the name “Jack” escape his lips.  
Detector stepped out of the shower and began towelling himself off, resolving that the brief, odd, and uncomfortable incident was nothing but a stress relief exercise, and would be better off to not be thought about. The clean pair of cotton boxers that he had hastily thrown into his small overnight bag felt rough and mildly uncomfortable against his tender member. He tried to pretend that he hadn’t just masturbated at all, it was going to be necessary in order to remain diplomatic over the course of the day it was nothing besides a stress relief exercise.   
Detector started at a staccato series of raps to the door, and hastily buttoned his slacks. “In a minute, please,” he called out, “The sheets are fine until tomorrow!”  
There was a second round of raps. Detector heaved a sigh and pulled his grey dress shirt on to answer the door. It was Taylor.  
“Good morning, fair Inspector!” Taylor smiled unevenly, giving the impression of a conspiratory smirk.   
“Can I help you Mr. Taylor?” Detector groaned as he began buttoning his shirt.  
“Well, I got your room number from the front desk, and thought that it would be a delight to sit downstairs in the restaurant for a bit of breakfast, I assume you and your--friend--will be going to the trial today?”   
“Friend?” Detector buttoned the last button and looked up.  
“Oh, well, I heard you talking to someone in there a moment ago.” Taylor chuckled knowingly as Detector’s face went red. “Maybe I was--mistaken?”  
“Look, I hardly think that it is appropriate for the two of use to be seen--fraternizing. You representing the opposite side of the case and all.” Detector frowned and leaned back, allowing the hotel room door to close slightly.  
“Detector.” Taylor said seriously, “I have no job. I have no income left to me, unless I can get that fucker Royalton behind bars. I think we may be on the same side in this trial.”  
Detector sighed and closed his eyes and he ran his index finger and thumb up the bridge of his nose. “Fine--Fine. Come in, then, I’m not quite ready.”  
Detector turned briskly and walked into the room. As he grumpily snatched his tie off of the bedside table where he had left it, Taylor sat at the foot of the bed, crossing one leg over the other and watching Detector with interest. As Detector worked his tie into a double Windsor, he felt a brief uneven blush flitter across his cheeks. It’s just stress, Detector thought hurriedly. Feeling too nervous to turn his back to Taylor, Detector attempted to correct his shirt collar without the aid of the mirror that was behind him. He tugged the collar to a point that he hoped was even, and began to tighten the knot on his tie.  
Taylor smiled that same slightly uneven smile and rose. “Let me help you.”  
Before Detector could protest, Taylor reached around the back of his neck while still facing him. Taylor set his chin on Detector’s shoulder and gently working his fingers beneath Detector’s careful double Windsor, Taylor righted his collar evenly.   
Detector coughed into his fist, feeling a characteristic tightness in his throat.   
“Well, well,” Taylor drawled, “To breakfast then?”  
“To breakfast.” Detector grimaced as Taylor held the door open with a broad sweep of his arms. 

X woke up to a stabbing pain in his shoulder. He sat up and looked around the sunlit room as the sheets pooled at his waist. He was alone. He hesitated as he stared at Detector’s pillow next to his own, gradually pulling puzzle pieces out of the ether and mentally putting them together. All of the images of the previous night came flooding back to him. He covered his face and moaned. “The fuck am I doing?”

The hotel offered a small complimentary breakfast in the traditional cheap continental style. Detector was used to much worse when he was on the job, and so he found himself smiling as Taylor distastefully plucked a yoghurt cup from a cooler to go with the mildly bruised apple already rolling around his paper plate. Detector chuckled as he dropped his pre-cut bagel into the decade-old toaster on the counter.   
“Don’t laugh at me.” Taylor said, tightening his jaw, “I’m not exactly used to old fruit and canned juice for breakfast--Royalton Motors took care of their acquisitions.”  
“Well, so does the State Penitentiary. Be thankful that you got freedom and a few bruised apples.” Detector smiled and sat down at a greying table in the corner.  
“No, stop. I wanted to have a civil breakfast with you.” Taylor sighed and sat across from him. “I’m not going to argue with you anymore.”  
“Well then.” Detector delicately buttered his bagel from a small plastic tub.  
“You never told me how you ended up in this hotel anyway.” Taylor smiled coyly. “I mean, I can assume, but--”  
“I just needed a place to say, that’s all there is to it.” Detector drawled, punctuating his sentence with a quick bite of his bagel.  
“So--What’s wrong with the place you live?” Taylor mumbled nonchalantly, stirring the cup of strawberry yoghurt.  
Detector took off his glasses and massaged this bridge of his nose forcefully, and closed his eyes. “I really don’t see how any of this--” He cut off as the toe of Taylor’s well-polished shoe played with his ankle under the cuff of his pant leg.  
“Is it--or is it not--over between you and the Harbinger of Boom?”  
Detector coughed. “It’s--” As he began to reply he realized that he hadn’t even fully acknowledged the fact to himself, let alone aloud to another person. Detector frowned and took a sip out of his Dixie cup of apple juice. He sighed deeply and looked into Taylor’s eyes. “I don’t want you getting any ideas.”  
“Oh, I will have ideas whether you like it or not, Inspector.” Taylor smiled. “But now that you have my attention, you do have to explain.”  
“We’re--well. It was just like two hearts breaking even. We called it quits.”  
“That’s cheap. You have to tell me more than that.”  
Detector hesitated as he thought about young Speed Racer. Young Speed Racer in his bed, Young Speed Racer with Rex. There was so much that Taylor didn’t know, and so much that he couldn’t know. “That’s all there was to it.”  
“That’s never all there is to it.”   
“What does it matter to you?”  
“Are you free tonight, then?”  
Detector hesitated. The question had caught him off guard.  
“I’ll answer for you. Yes. You are. And you would love to meet me tonight in the lounge at 8:00 for a light dinner and drinks.”   
Detector tried to smile. He promised himself that this would help him forget. “Well, I suppose you have your answer now, then.”

X pushed the sheets away from his body and slid out of the bed, moving towards the kitchen, where he thought he had heard a brief sound. The kitchen was empty, however, with no sign of early morning habitation by an overnight guest. Sighed, X pulled a canister of pre-ground coffee out of the pantry. A part of him had been hoping for an early morning heart-to-heart with his brother, to set some ground rules, but it appeared that he was completely alone in the apartment. He set the coffee to brew and went to the bathroom for a brief shower. Mentally he resolved to get Speed out to lunch for a long talk.

Detector slammed his briefcase shut with flick of his wrist and savoured the sound of the lock clicking shut. It gave off the feeling of a lunch bell as negotiations had reached a standstill between the CIB’s lawyers and Royalton’s. Things were getting no where at a very tedious rate when it came to the proceedings. But inwardly Detector allowed himself a small smile. Regardless of how well negotiations went, the police and the government were on the side of the CIB, and it was guaranteed that Royalton would spend a very long time in a federal prison. All the money and power in the world could not separate his name from such damning evidence as the events at the Grand Prix, combined with the files that Taejo Togokhan had pulled out.  
Politely waving off any offers to lunch from other CIB agents, Detector made his way to the parking garage alone. He walked under the flickering fluorescent bulbs and mentally reminded himself that he had parked in section b of floor two, there was a yellow hexagon on the sign. He climbed a flight of stairs in the cool quiet and pushed open the heavy metal door leading to the parking area of floor two. He saw his familiar car underneath the brightest light, where he had intentionally parked, but hesitated when he saw an unfamiliar car beside his. Someone in a suit was leaning against the hood of the car, with their back to Detector. He frowned turning behind a pillar as though walking to a different car, but as he pressed his front against the cold cement, his cell phone beeped loudly, trying in its plaintive way to alert him to a message.  
The stranger turned his head quickly and spotted Detector. As he began to walk over, reaching into his breast pocket, Detector tightened his grip on the cement and mentally berated himself for not bringing his gun to the trial regardless of legalities. The stranger stepped under a light and Detector got a better look at his face. It was Taylor.  
“Are we playing hide-and-seek?” Taylor laughed as he pulled a circular tin of mints from his jacket’s breast pocket and shook one into the palm of his hand.  
Detector pushed away from the pillar, clutching his heart. “Christ I thought you were a hit man!” he gestured away Taylor’s proffered mints.  
“I’ll give you a tip--Royalton’s hit men don’t wait by your car in the city hall parking garage.” Taylor chuckled.  
“Regardless. I’m on edge, I’ve been on edge through this whole damn trial!”  
“Let’s ditch it then.”  
“Excuse me?”  
“We’re not needed right now. Not even the press has anything to do with witnesses, and there are at least fifty other CIB agents who can take your place for a few hours.”  
“And where are you proposing that we ditch the most important trial of the decade to go?” Detector scoffed outwardly, but he had already made up his mind. Taylor had a way about him, with all of his presumptuousness and pomposity, that managed to take a little bit of the extra weight off of Detector’s shoulders.  
“Lunch, I think, is on my schedule first.”   
Detector made a show of sounding exasperated about the whole situation, despite his good feelings. “Very well. I’ll dri--”  
“Oh no, I insist! Let a professional take you out.”   
Detector sighed, a little more honestly, and followed Taylor towards his car.

X clicked his phone shut and stared up at the ceiling habitually. No one, including his family, had heard from Speed since the night before. Finding the situation more uneasy than ominous, X zipped his cowl and strode out of the apartment--determined to find Speed.  
As he walked down the hall X mentally practised all areas of his proposed discussion with Speed in a garbled disorderly fashion. “Unacceptable, last night was ridiculous. Respect, both parties. Contact--in your position undoubtedly. Slowly. With care. Love? Our stance. This as a relationship. I am your brother--” X stopped dead in his tracks just outside of the several storey apartment building.   
In the parking lot Taejo was just stepping out of his car, a scowl straining the corners of his face, drawing attention to a long thin gash that ran down his cheekbone. X took a step back, unsure if he should be seen in the area, in full disguise. But Taejo looked up and made eye contact with X, signalling him over to the side of his car. X paused near the passenger side.  
“Get in the car.” Taejo said softly, narrowing his eyes against the bright sunlight that reflected across the nearby line of parked cars.  
With little excess thought, X swung the door open and climbed inside the sports car, a frown playing on his lips. He wasn’t sure if this was going to fit in with his plans for the day, but he had a feeling that it was going to shed some light on several things, Taejo rarely visits anyone with no reason, and personally X wanted to know when he had gained his facial injury.  
Without another word, Taejo peeled out of the parking and made several precise turns. It wasn’t until he was merging onto the freeway northbound that he spoke again. “Do you have a cell phone on you?”  
X smiled, he knew where this was going. He reached into his pocket and nodded.   
“Throw it out the window.”  
X complied.  
“If we keep moving, there’s less chance that we can be tapped.”  
X smiled. “Go on.”  
“Look. Things are happened. Ripples are moving out in the WRL community, and you appear to be at the centre of it all.” Taejo turned and studied X briefly, before switching lanes. “You and Detector.”  
“We broke up.”  
“That’s what I thought.” Taejo merged off the freeway and began driving perpendicular to where they had previously been going, Eastbound. “You and Speed Racer?”  
X remained silent.  
“Look, I know it’s none of my business. But I have two reasons why you need to rethink your direction.” Taejo turned sharply and began driving down a twisting meandering boulevard Southbound. “Reason one: Speed is--Well, it’s hard to exactly say--You know--This isn’t my native language. He is a--Sociopath.”  
X cocked an eyebrow, but remained silent.  
“Say what you will, Racer X. I know Speed. I--” Taejo broke away and breathed deeply, turning and driving further Eastbound, “Speed does not know what it is that he does people. Or he does know and doesn’t care. Or he likes it. Speed has been habitually destroying people for fifteen or more years. Do you talk to Trixie?”  
X cleared his throat. “I don’t think she would talk to me if I wanted her to.”  
“I disagree.” Taejo breathed deeply and mumbled something under his breath, it sounded like Korean. “X--Talk to Trixie. I’ve--She’ll understand.”  
“You’ve been trying to say something every other sentence and I want to hear it.”  
“I’ve been with Speed, X. I’ve been with him. I know--I know what he does. I know what he’s like. You don’t know it yet, but he’s manipulating you. And it doesn’t stop. He’ll continue.” Taejo turned again, Northbound.   
“This,” X ran two finger down his own cheekbone, “Speed?”  
“He can be violent, X.”  
“I assumed you were worried about Race Fixers, or Royaltonites, or even the CIB--Is it Speed who you worry will listen in?”  
“I’m positive that if I knows you and I are in the same car, which he will figure out, that he will use every dirty means to figure out what it is that I am telling you now.”  
“What was the other reason that you were warning me away from him?” X rubbed his dry lips with his hand, and wished for a drink of water.  
“I don’t have much more time, but X--I know who you are.”  
X stayed silent. This trick had been used against him more than a dozen times, so he said nothing.  
Taejo glanced up at the rear-view mirror, and began bouncing his eyes between it, the road ahead, and X’s face. “You’re wearing two disguises, the first is your mask. And the second is your face under your mask. I’ve seen more than you think I have.”  
X licked his lips, maintaining silence.  
“As a child I came down with pneumonia. It was severe. As the only son and heir of Togokhan enterprises, I was hospitalized in secret, in a place used to catering to delicate situations. And I at my hospital I saw a famous race car driver.”  
X swallowed audibly.  
“I didn’t make the connection until years down the line. This is how childhood is, these are what memories can be like. He, the driver, was staying in room 204. Across the hall from my room. He checked in the day after I did, and the day before I checked out of the hospital, a different man checked out of room 204. A man who had never checked in.” Taejo coughed and turned, driving Westbound. “As a child, I remembered only that I had seen my hero at the hospital. It wasn’t until just after Casa Cristo that I realized--I checked in to that hospital on the day that my hero died.”  
X sighed.  
“I have kept your secret, and I will continue to do so, Rex Racer.” Taejo turned into a long alley going Northbound. “Just be careful. There are many people who care enough about you to worry.”  
The car stopped and Taejo leaned over to open the passenger door. “We’re about ten blocks from your apartment. You went for a walk to the store. You needed the fresh air. I anticipate Speed will be waiting for you in your apartment. He had left my home just before I picked you up, after all.”

Detector speared a cherry tomato delicately with his salad fork, and smiled at Taylor as he removed it with his teeth. Little had been said since they had arrived at the small bistro on the edge of downtown. Taylor had understood Detector’s need for comfortable silence, his need to be able to separate himself from the noise and disorder of the legal proceedings they had left. Taylor ran the tip of his shoe against the blade of Detector’s, leisurely, back and forth. Detector was smiling, he was in bliss. He had not been so comfortable, felt so natural, in months.

As X walked up to the door of his apartment he noted that it was left ajar. Knowing that he had carefully locked up before leaving, X took a deep breath. He had to assume that Speed had been watching him walk up to the apartment from the bedroom window. And he realized, though he had started the day intending to remain in control of the situation, it had somehow been taken away from him violently. With an audible inhale, X pushed the door open using his palm rested above the doorknob.   
Sitting on the couch, legs crossed, with a racing magazine on his lap Speed looked the image of serene innocence. He looked up and smiled as he made eye contact with X.  
“I missed you, where have you been?” Speed showed his teeth.

Taylor opened the door for Detector and posed like a chauffeur, causing them both to laugh. Detector sat down in the passenger seat and smiled up at Taylor as he gently shut the door and moved to the other side of the car. It was dusk, and since the restaurants in the area were primarily lunch spots, very few people were visible in the growing gloom. Taylor leaned over from the driver’s side slowly, and brought his face close to Detectors, watching his eyes carefully.   
This moment exists in every burgeoning relationship, however brief the moment may last. While studying Detector’s face, Taylor was subtly asking that, in honour of such an enjoyable evening and such excellent companionship, the night be closed with a small token of gratitude in the form of a first kiss.   
Detector smiled minutely, and Taylor reached up to run his fingers through the hair at the base of Detector’s skull, holding his head in place. Their lips met with a tender ferocity, one long kiss, and a small brief kiss as though it were Taylor’s signature. Detector’s head felt hazy, his body awkward, and in one moment he felt like he had returned to lucidity; “Except we can’t stop making mistakes,” Detector thought, the words floating out into the fog surrounding his brief mental clarity.  
Taylor smiled widely, his half-lidded eyes still focused on Detector’s face. “Where to next?” his voice sounded husky.  
“Well--” Detector hesitated, the fog closing in again and leaving his previous thought lost somewhere in the ether of his mind, “--I think the hotel sounds like a wonderful place to be.”

Racer X ran his palms down the sides of his pants, leaving brief streaks of sweat gleaming on the black leather. “I stepped out to go to the store.”  
“Without your car?” Speed cocked his eyebrow, still smiling.  
“It’s such a beautiful day, I thought it would be nice to get a little bit of sun--After--Last night--” X swallowed. He was trying to regain control of the situation.   
“Last night?”  
“Dammit, Speed.” X coughed, his frustration was getting the better of him. “Last night was out of line! You have to--When you start a relationship with someone in my position you need--”  
“In your position?” Speed frowned, “I don’t understand.”  
X sighed and pulled his cowl off to rub the bridge of his nose. “Speed. I have been in a relationship with one man for ten years. You need to use sympathy--empathy when you approach this relationship if it is going to be successful at all.”  
Speed rose, brushing invisible debris off his trouser-front. “Oh X. I had no idea.” Speed walked towards X and wrapped his arms around his shoulder, nuzzling X’s cheek with his own.  
“So Taejo was wrong, then.” X thought with relief as Speed kissed him.

The hotel door swung open soundlessly and slammed into the wall. Taylor had led Detector to his hotel room, which was substantially smaller than Detector’s. Wordlessly, Taylor pushed Detector into the Queen sized bed, his cheeks ruddy with arousal. Detector laughed through the growing tightness in his chest as Taylor tugged his tie off with one hand, their legs intertwining over the floral comforter. They kissed again, this time Taylor’s tongue slipped between Detector’s lips, fingers gripped hair, and both men sighed into each other’s mouths blissfully.   
“I feel like--” Detector moaned as Taylor kissed down his jugular and dotted his clavicle with gentle pecks, “--that this is something--inevitable.”  
“Inevitable?” Taylor whispered, unbuttoning Detector’s shirt and planting a kiss where each new inch of skin was revealed.  
Detector groaned, dragging his fingernails up Taylor’s back, “It--was set into motion a long time ago.”  
“Predestined?” Taylor slid Detector’s shirttails out from his pants and ran his palms up Detector’s bare ribcage.  
“Uhh--Yes. This is our predestination. We couldn’t--” Detector trailed away has Taylor tweaked both of his nipples at once. He arched his back into the touch, a soft growl issuing at the back of his throat.   
“Couldn’t what?” Taylor smiled crookedly as Detector weakly reached up to loosen his tie.  
Detector worked his fingers into the single Windsor and pulled it loose, tossing the strip of silk aside. “Couldn’t have made it any different--haaaaaa--even if we tried to--”   
Taylor ran his thumb over Detector’s lips, “Not that I would have ever tried.”   
Detector slid his hands into Taylor’s unbuttoned shirt, reaching around behind and tucking his fingers into the back of his pants and pulling Taylor’s hips against his own, eliciting a groan from both men. Taylor reached his hands underneath Detector’s arms and rolled over, flipping Detector atop himself.   
“You--” Taylor moaned as Detector ground his hips against him, and struggled with Detector’s belt buckle, “--Top.”  
Detector smiled, palming Taylor’s sternum possessively. “Me? I always assumed you--”  
Taylor unzipped Detector’s pants, “Later--We’ll talk about this--laterrrr,” Taylor pushed Detector’s pants down just under his butt along with his underwear.   
Detector was fully erect, and a small amount of precum dripped off of the tip of his prick. Gratefully, Taylor ran his hand from the tip to the base of Detector’s erection, and back to the tip. Detector moaned loudly, thrusting forward into Taylor’s hand. Clumsily Detector reached down and undid Taylor’s slacks, freeing his cock. Detector smiled and stood up, allowing his pants to fall down all the way.   
Taylor reached out and clasped Detector’s hands, pulling him back into the bed, and they kissed again, fiercely.   
Taylor reached across the bed where his sports jacket had been tossed aside and fumbled for the pockets, and extracted a small tube of lubricant, which he passed to Detector with a conspiratory wink. The lube was cold on Detector’s palms has he worked his hands together with the substance. As it warmed, he carefully lifted Taylor’s backside up, with one hand behind his knee, and slipped two fingers between his cheeks to gently massage the hidden puckered hole. Taylor leaned his head back into the pillow, the muscles and veins in his neck tensing dramatically. Detector slipped one finger in, gently working lube around the outer rim of the hole, but meeting little resistance. He worked the finger in deeper, and then added a second one, scissoring the two gently in and out of Taylor’s anus. As he did this with his left hand, he began massaging lubricant into his own cock with his right hand, thrusting forward subconsciously with his hips.   
The two men made eye contact, and Taylor nodded, his face flushed. Detector smiled, his mind surrounded with a thick mental haze of arousal, and positioned the head of his cock against Taylor’s anus, hesitating briefly before pushing in.  
The moment when Taylor clenched around Detector’s hardness for the first time and flurry of cataclysmic colours erupted through his mental fog, the shock caused his heart to stop for a brief moment, and he balanced himself with one hand against the bed, breathing deeply.  
“It’s--been a long time.” Detector said through small gasps apologetically.   
Taylor rocked against Detector, eliciting a loud moan that verged on a scream from the man. “J----Jack!” Detector could feel his body teetering over the precipice of orgasm, and reached out to wrap his arms around Taylor’s shoulders, attempting to meet his thrusts in tempo. He wrapped one hand around Taylor’s cock and began stimulating it in time to their own thrusts.  
Detector’s orgasm almost took him by surprise, the colours in his mind exploded with a deeper franticness, his muscles stiffed and spasmed all at once and he could feel Taylor’s name on his lips. Taylor came soon after, his seed spilling out between their bodies, and staining both their stomachs. Detector fell against Taylor, gasping for air.  
Taylor smiled at Detector, his cheeks a deep red, “I take it you’re not usually on top.”  
“It’s been years.” Detector moaned, nestling his head against Taylor’s shoulder.  
“Glad I could be here to see it.”


End file.
